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So Who Are We Now?
Lynn Vavreck’s article in the New York Times entitled “Keep Your Eyes on the Losing Candidates” states, “…[I]t is of great consequence who wins elections, but the candidates who lose are equally important to the future of free and fair elections in the United States.”
The crux of her message centers around how candidates who lost elections behaved, specifically Nixon, Gore, and Clinton. They all conceded. Hillary Clinton wrote, “I’m here today to honor our democracy and its enduring values.” Al Gore, who won the popular vote by half a million votes, conceded the loss “for the sake of our unity as a people, and the strength of our democracy.”
And look at Nixon. Vavreck reminds us that he not only “presided in Congress over his own loss in the Electoral College, he pledged his ‘wholehearted support’ to his opponent, John F. Kennedy, and asked his supporters to do the same.” (italics mine)
You can tell a lot about a person not only by how they behave after losing, but also how they behave after winning. And this is not just about politeness or making nice. It’s about what kind of a hold the ego might have on you — and whether you’re actually capable of stepping aside for the greater good.
